


a mad person who has thrown who has thrown his life away

by Walutahanga



Series: what was considered to be him was only his shadow [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sense8 (TV), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 08:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18546298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: Thor doesn't believe in Sensates. Nor does he believe that his brother is one. But his relationship with Jane Foster makes him doubt his own conclusions.





	a mad person who has thrown who has thrown his life away

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the background of my other fic 'An Unbroken Chain', so it might not make sense without reading that first. This covers the time between Thor leaving and coming back from Asgard, and reveals what made him ready to listen about Sensates. 
> 
> In the MCU, this is basically a re-working of the second Thor movie, plus some background on one itty-bitty Agents of Shield villain.

Thor doesn't believe in Sensates.

Obviously.

It is clearly little more than mortal superstition that his brother used to leverage more sympathetic treatment. Infuriatingly, it worked. While Fury and his followers did not like or respect Loki in the smallest measurement, there had been a subtle shift in their attitude; a renewed sense of care, as one might show toward a priceless treasure one does not wish to explain breaking. 

 _"Everything you do to a Sensate rebounds on their cluster,"_ Agent Romanov told him when he remarked on it. _"And for better or worse, no one gets to choose their cluster-mates. There's no reason to hurt someone who had the bad luck of being born at the same moment as Loki."_

She said it quite matter-of-factly and Thor was disappointed that even this most cynical of mortals had succumbed to such primitive beliefs. Where is the proof of this Sensate matter? He'd give it more weight if there were physical evidence, but there's nothing beyond a few odd brain patterns and Loki's play-acting.

At least Loki has the sense not to attempt his lies on the All-Father, accepting his sentence with a sardonic expression and poisonous tongue. For his crimes, he’s imprisoned below the Asgard palace and Thor resolves not to think of him again.

* * *

That resolution proves impossible to keep. Thor finds a ready confidant in Sif, who listens patiently to his confessions of disappointment, anger and the very faint hope that Loki might redeem himself. She is sympathetic but honest. 

"Did we give Lorelei a second chance when she murdered Balder? No, we knew she was lost to madness and locked her up where she could do no more harm to herself or others." 

"Yes, but..." Thor trails off, realising he was about to say 'but that's different' as if an Asgardian life was worth more than the mortals Loki killed. Perhaps they weighed differently to him but Sif was correct that no life was inherently worth more or less than another. “Perhaps I simply wish it so because he is my brother." 

She squeezes his hand kindly. "It would be unnatural if you felt otherwise.”

Thor is uncomfortably aware that he is leading her on. Sif is not subtle about her feelings, however much she tries to hide them, and Odin is less than subtle in his support of the potential union.

Yet Thor would have his doubts even if he reciprocated. It has been barely over two decades since Balder died and Thor has not missed the resemblance he bears to his ill-fated cousin, both in body and character. He has no desire to stand in for a dead bridegroom, to always know his wife's touch was not for him but the ghost between them. ( _"Like having three to a bed," Loki said once, then cackled as if at some private joke_ ). 

If only it were proper to discuss such matters among Asgardians. One of Jane's charms was her refreshing forwardness. Mortals have phrases and codes specifically to add shades of meaning to romantic context; _I love you as a friend. I need more time. I am afraid to risk our current friendship._

Among Asgardians, there is only two proper responses to a declaration of love; yes, or no, and if you cannot say yes, it is not appropriate to raise the subject.

* * *

It is perhaps cruel to Sif for him to bring Jane to Asgard without warning, but in the circumstances Thor thinks it justified. Jane's condition demands more advanced care than can be provided by Midgard, even if he trusted doctors who believed in fairy tales of invisible companions. Sif will just have to bear it.

Despite the circumstances, Thor is glad for a reason to bring Jane to Asgard and show her the wonders of his home. Her awe is a soothing balm to his spirit, as is her intense interest in even the most minute of details. Everything here is a wonder for her so it becomes new again in his eyes. Mortals, he thinks fondly, are a never-ending source of delight, perhaps because their lives are so short they have little time for boredom.  Like butterflies they must dart from one experience to the next, cramming as much as they can into one lifetime. 

"Nobody's going to believe this," Jane is saying as they walk through the palace. "Except my cluster of course. Richard is completely freaking out." 

"Who's Richard?" Thor asks warily. He should not be jealous, he reminds himself. Though his heart has not changed, hers is mortal and changeable. She has little time to waste in yearning after a union that may never happen. 

"My cluster-mate. _Oh wow._ " Her accent abruptly shifts as she veers toward the balcony, taking on a strange lilt. "Look at that view. It's incredible. We should have brought a camera." 

"Jane?" He turns her to face, him worried by her sudden shift in demeanour. "Are you feeling alright?" 

"Hmm?" That absent expression slips from her face, replaced by her usual quiet intensity. "Yes, I'm fine. Richard just wanted a better look." 

"Jane, there is no one else here." 

She blinks, then comprehension dawns and she laughs. "Yes and no. Thor, I'm Sensate." 

He'd heard that word from Fury before, and the Shield doctor with his primitive diagrams. "Jane," he says gently. "That is not real. That is just... fanciful superstition. But if you are hallucinating, we should tell the healers - "

She pulls away from him. Her small pretty face floods with colour. "Don't you dare tell me I'm make believe," she says tightly and he realises she is angry. "Or imply that I'm mad."

"I'm not - " 

"Yes, you are. And you did." She walks away. "I'm going to my room."

* * *

Thor is wise enough not to broach the subject with Jane again but he is concerned enough to speak to the healers. 

“Could there be something wrong with her mind? Beyond the Aether, I mean.”

“Hmm.” The healer brings up Jane’s scan. “There is something here. An odd physical formation of the brain.”

“A tumour?”

“No, it’s a harmless abnormality that turns up occasionally. Your brother has the same thing, in fact. Other than that she’s in perfect health.”

Thor vaguely recalls the Midgardian doctor's explanations. He'd said something about deformities in the brain too; some sort of bridge between the spheres. Perhaps there is something in this after all; a rare condition that mortals have mistaken for magic. 

"Could it cause hallucinations?” He asks. "Or interfere with judgement?" 

“Absolutely not,” the healer assures him. “Your brother developed the condition centuries ago. We’d have seen symptoms long before now.”

* * *

Thor has little time to dwell on it. Loki is locked up and the matter will keep until they have less urgent concerns pressing on them. Or so he thinks. Later he wishes he had voiced suspicions with his mother, so that when she died, she might at least have had the faint hope that Loki was not responsible for his actions. And after that, Odin is in no mood to listen to anyone about the defence of Asgard, much less anything about Loki's guilt or innocence. 

Truthfully, the matter doesn't come up again until Thor and his friends are stealing Jane from her guards and freeing Loki from the dungeons, bringing them face to face. 

Jane has her hand raised to deliver a slap, but she freezes, eyes wide and horrified as she stares up at Loki. "Oh fuck," she says. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fucking _shit_." 

Loki seems appalled, staring back at her like he's going to be sick. "Wonderful," he says faintly. "Another one." 

"Jane, what's wrong?" Thor says. 

She tears her eyes from Loki to look at him. "Thor, you never said your brother was a Sensate!" Her voice has climbed a furious octave. 

"I don't under–”

"Thor, Sensates can't look each other in the eye without forming a connection. This is _permanent_!" 

"I'm afraid you're wasting your time," Loki interjects. "I spent a century trying to convince him that I wasn't a liar. He doesn't believe in Sensates, so he saw no point in warning us." He rubs his forehead. "And now I have a headache." 

Jane gives Thor a look of hurt betrayal, which makes him feel like he's somehow done the wrong thing and annoyed at being made to feel that way. 

"We don't have time for this. We have to go." 

Jane jerks her elbow out of his grasp. "I can walk by myself," she snaps. 

"Idiot," Loki mutters, and Thor is unsettled by their twin, mirrored anger.

* * *

The feeling doesn't go away even after their escape. Loki seems disturbed by Jane's convalescence. He refuses to touch her, going so far as to sit down the other end of the boat. Thor hadn't been planning to let him near Jane regardless, but he's annoyed by the clear revulsion. 

"She's not infected," he points out as he tucks his cloak over Jane's sleeping form. 

"Yes, she is," Loki retorts immediately. "It's like a.... fever heat radiating off her. I've only felt something like this twice before and not inside a mortal skin." 

"I thought you liked power." 

"Power I can control. This is different." He wipes his hands on his thighs, as if to brush off some imaginary residue. "Keep her away from her cluster. It can't jump without physical proximity, but a psychic link would make it easier."

"It wants to jump?" 

"It wants to survive. Once the vessel fails it will seek a new one." 

"Like us, you mean.”

Loki smiles grimly. "Thus I am all the way down here. You might be less vulnerable."  

Thor looks at his brother, trying to recall the last time they'd had a civil conversation. "These tales of Sensates - "

"Have the decency to at least pretend you believe me, Thor." 

"You truly believe them? It is not some sham?" 

A look of weariness crossed Loki's face. "What would it gain me?" He says. "Other than ridicule and contempt, what could I possibly gain from such a ruse?" 

"I don't know. Ever since Jotunheim, I feel like I never knew you at all." 

"You don't want to know me, brother." Loki glances at Jane, and his expression does something complicated. "Break it off with her." 

Anger flashes through Thor. "That is none of your business." 

"She's like me. Either she's mad and happy in that madness, or telling the stone-cold truth. Your derision will destroy everything good between you." For a moment, Loki looks distant. "I pity her, loving you." 

Thor is so furiously angry he could hit his brother. How dare he act as if he had any say in Thor's life any longer –

With an effort he pushes it aside. "Was it so difficult being my brother?" 

Loki stares bleakly into the horizon and doesn't answer the question.

* * *

Their plans to stop Malekith fail. Miserably. The only saving grace is that none of them are dead, not even Jane who has the Aether drained from her.

“If I were wiser I’d leave you here,” Loki remarks poisonously as they’re stumbling from the storm into the cold shelter of a cave.

“Why don’t you then?” Thor says snappishly.

“Her.” Loki sneers at Jane, who rolls her eyes at him. “Thanks to your mortal, you know have a leash on me that can’t be broken. Are you happy now?”

“You’re a murderer,” Jane snaps. “I should be the one complaining.”

Loki growls then winces, pressing a hand to his side. “You must excuse me, I appear to have a hole in my chest.”

Thor has barely time to experience panic, when Jane starts calmly ripping segments from her skirt. “Alright, lets take a look,” she says, accent suddenly rounded and crisp and slightly deeper than normal. “Thor, could you get that armour or whatever it is open. We’ll need to put pressure on the wound.”

It’s such a difference in demeanour, Thor takes a moment to obey, plucking at the lacings on Loki’s body-armour. Loki is frowning at Jane. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he says slowly.

“Doctor Donald Blake. I work primarily ER if that means anything to you, so I know my way around a puncture wound, but if there’s any significant differences between human anatomy and yours, now’s the time to say something.”

“Nothing relevant to this kind of injury.” He lifts his arm so that Jane can get at the wound better. He answers her questions, if not warmly, then civilly. He even asks a few of his own, making casual conversation with Jane’s imaginary other self as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Thor wants to tell his brother to stop playing along with her madness. Yet he’s also uncomfortably aware that Loki might not be pretending. Never once by implication or word has he suggested that Jane is anything other than of sound mind. Perhaps to Loki she _is_ sane, and the rest of the world mad.

These are uncomfortable and unproductive thoughts and Thor does not enjoy them.

When Jane is done, Loki’s expression changes, irritation smoothing away. “Thank you,” he says to Jane with gentleness utterly unlike himself, his words flattened and strange. “He will not say it, but the rest of us are grateful nonetheless.”

“He saved my cluster-mate’s life,” Jane says, still in that rounded accent. “I’m just returning the favour.”

Thor looks away from the scene, gritting his teeth. “Now what?” He says, trying to pull their attention back on him. “How do we get home?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Jane says, sounding more like herself. “Loki knows the way out, and we have the boat.” She pauses a beat, then glances to her left with faint exasperation. “No, Richard, I don’t think calling my cell is going to help–”

Music breaks the silence. For a moment, all three stare at each other in disbelief.

“You were saying?” Loki says snidely.

“The rifts!” Jane blurts out, eyes widening realisation, and darts deeper into the cave, following the sound.

* * *

On Midgard, they’re greeted at Jane’s apartment by Darcy, Erik, and two unfamiliar men. One apparently is squire to Darcy and therefore to Jane, if Thor understands correctly. The other is a tall, curly-haired man who blurts out ‘Thor!’ happily as if they’re old friends.

“I don’t believe we –”

“I’m Richard. Great to meet you in person.” He shakes Thor's hand in an overly-friendly way. “I’m so sorry about your mother.”

“I –” Thor is rendered speechless as Richard kisses Jane with absent familiarity. She returns in the same vein, with the easy intimacy of long lovers. 

While Thor is still reeling from that shock, Richard helps Loki into the loungeroom, onto the couch. He and Jane immediately start fussing over Loki's wound with the first-aid kit, switching between accents, arguing with each other and then sometimes themselves about alien physiology. Loki doesn't seem bothered. Erik is hiding in the kitchen while Darcy and Ian try to soothe him down ( _"See, this is why you don't throw all your meds out at once..."_ ) 

“Is Richard your beloved?” Thor asks Jane when he finally manages to get her alone. 

“Yes. No. It’s complicated.” Jane sighs, peeling off latex gloves and tossing them in the garbage. “He’s my cluster-mate. It’s hard to explain.” 

“But you are bound by an understanding."

“It’s not quite like that. There aren’t any vows or promises. It just is.”

“Then he does have a prior claim on you.”

“No.” Jane frowns, frustrated. “It’s like saying I’ve made a promise to my hand or my foot. They’re just there. I could lose them, but I would be less. Does that make sense?”

It doesn’t, but making comments about a foreign culture he doesn’t understand hasn't served Thor well so far. Whether or not Jane is mad (and he is starting to believe that she isn't) she is clearly respected and valued for it on Midgard. Would Loki have been happy, if he was raised here rather than Asgard? 

"What is it like?" Thor asks after a moment, and knows he's said the right thing by the way Jane’s face lights up. 

“Even while I'm standing here with you, I could look out the window to Mexico, or walk out the door to a New Zealand beach, or sit down at a bar in London. I'm never alone." 

"Never?"

"Nope." Her smile fades a notch. "I feel it when they're hurt, of course, and I'll be with them when they die, or they'll be with me. But I suppose that's the same price of any relationship. The more intense the connection, the greater the pain when it ends." 

Seeing the pensive look on her face, Thor experiences something like envy. Jane will not live five thousand years, but she will experience several lifetimes over. Time lived concurrently rather than consecutively, connections measured in intensity rather than duration. 

Thor looks across the room at his brother, who is politely answering Richard's questions shortly, face drawn tight with pain. 

"I didn't believe him," he admits. "I'm still not sure I do." 

"Well." Jane pats his hand. "That's step one."

* * *

It isn’t until their return to Asgard, and Loki is safely in his cell, that Thor seeks out Sif. He needs the firm, clear logic of her point of view. She can be relied on to consider all points from every angle. She may even be able to point out some thread that will either unravel this delusion or prove it's reality beyond the shadow of a doubt.

“Do you recall the companions Loki used to speak of?” He begins. 

Sif seems to think for a moment. “That was so long ago. One lived on Midgard, didn’t she. And one was a Kree.” A small fond smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “He and Lorelei had such imagination.”

“Lorelei?” 

“Yes, don’t you remember? They were always off playing together, whenever the rest of us wouldn’t go along their little game.” 

“ _Their_ game?” Thor thinks back. He doesn’t recall Lorelei very well as a child, having only a vague impression of red-gold hair and an annoyance that was always on Sif’s heels, much as Loki was always on his. “She and Loki were friends?”

“Of course!” Sif laughs. “Thor, surely you remember that. Lorelei’s family left court because Odin caught the two of them playing kissing games in the orchard.”

“I didn’t know.” He has a vague memory of Loki being in disgrace about that time, but Loki was so often in hot water, it hadn’t seemed out of the ordinary.

“Well, it as all kept very quiet. They weren’t quite old enough to court yet, and my mother said your father had higher marriages in mind for Loki than the second-born daughter of a low-standing noble.” 

“Loki didn’t seem much broken up when she left.”

Sif waves a hand dismissively. “They had some means of keeping contact. I never asked how – what I don’t know, I cannot lie to the All-Father about. But whenever I visited Lorelei, she spoke of court politics as an insider would. And Loki sometimes referred to things I _know_ I’d only told Lorelei.”

Thor frowns. That sounds far too much like his own experience with Jane and Richard. "Lorelei, she's the same age as Loki, isn't she?"  

Sif nods. "Born on the same day, in fact." 

"Or the same moment," Thor mutters.

How much had Loki hidden over the years? How much did he keep from his family, and how much was them simply not paying attention?

_You don't want to know me, brother._

A thought strikes him. “But if Lorelei was in love with Loki, then why kill Balder? That makes no sense –” He stops, recalling who he’s talking to.

Sif’s lips purse. “The court gossips like to spin their stories,” she says tightly. “It does no justice to either Balder or Lorelei. I suppose it makes a compelling story, a madwoman driven to obsession with a man who would not have her. Nevermind there’s not an ounce of truth to it.” 

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, uncomfortable that he too had believed the whispers. “Do you know the truth of it?”

Sif shakes her head. “The truth is, Lorelei had not been well for some time even before she did what she did. She had become very strange, rejecting her friends and resentful of her family. Once I saw her turn address the empty air, as if there were someone else in the room.” There’s a wealth of pain in Sif’s voice. “I lost my lover and my best friend on the same day.” 

Like Loki, Thor things. A loyal brother one day. The next suddenly gone, consumed by a mad stranger with a familiar face. 

"Thor.” Sif touches his arm. "Are you alright?" 

He looks down at her worried expression, recalling the horrible lurch when Jane had kissed Richard. "I have not been kind to you," he says softly. 

Pink touches her face. "You have many distractions." 

"I have given you false hope." He draws breath, wishing he had done this long before. "I could perhaps love you, in time, as my father wishes. But I do not believe it would make either of us happy." 

She draws back. "Because of Jane." 

"Regardless of what occurs between Jane and myself." 

It is an awkward, difficult talk. Not, however, as difficult as he dreaded it to be. Sif accepts his feelings for what they are and assures him that, though bruised, her heart will recover and they will remain friends. 

* * *

A few hours later, Thor stands before Loki’s cell. Loki has been treated by the healers and is his usual sneering self, if slightly less venomous than usual due to the blurriness of painkillers.

“What do you want now, brother?” He says. “To talk to Jane? I’m not your messenger.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to be,” Thor says, though it’s an interesting idea. He pauses before asking: "Why did Lorelei kill Balder?" 

Because he’s watching for it, he notices the faint beat before Loki answers. “Didn’t you listen to the court gossips? It was quite the sensation at the time. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and all that.”

 _Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned_. It is not an Asgardian phrase, though the concept does exist. An Asgardian would say _‘Betray your beloved and sleep with one eye open’_. What Loki said is a distinctly Midgardian turn of phrase.

“Lorelei wasn’t in love with Balder though,” Thor presses. “She was in love with you.”

“Was she? How extraordinary. I suppose you want to find a way to blame me for that mess too.”

Thor refuses to be distracted. “She was your cluster-mate.”

There’s a long pause. Then Loki says calmly: “Is, Thor. She _is_ my cluster-mate. It’s not a relationship one can simply step away from.”

Vindication should feel better. “Then why kill Balder? What was the motive?”

“Sometimes there is no motive, Thor. Sometimes chaos is its own reward.”

“As how you tried to destroy Jotunheim?” 

There’s a beat and Loki’s smile does not touch his eyes. “Not quite the same.”

“Please, brother," Thor says. "I just want to understand.” 

After a long, long moment Loki answers: “No one listened.” His voice is different. Small and angry. “They spoke fine words of loyalty and friendship, but when we truly needed their help, they’d all rather believe what was convenient than take us at our word. We screamed and begged and cried, and _no one listened_.” Magic sparks between his fingertips and in the green light, he looks hardly sane as he hisses: "They hear us now." The next moment, intense grief crosses his expression and the magic snuffs out. 

He truly is mad, Thor thinks sadly. Not because he's Sensate - Richard and Jane are proof that one condition does not automatically equal the other - but... a side-effect perhaps. If one member is mad, then perhaps the madness has spread through the cluster like an infection, like the Aether. Perhaps all those efforts to treat Loki and Lorelei have been useless because the true source of their madness originates elsewhere. 

“Where is Lorelei now?” He asks gently. 

Loki shrugs. “I imagine the same place she’s been for the last two decades.”

“I know that’s not true, brother. She escaped during Malekith’s attack.” A little bit frustrated, Thor adds: “I _know_ that you know that.”

“Indulge me, Thor. I’ve very little in the way of amusement.” Loki leans back against the wall. “Lorelei is exactly where she wants to be.”

“You know that she is not well. She will kill again." When Loki just shrugs indifferently, Thor adds angrily: “You know that there are innocents out there who don’t deserve what she will do. If you don't care about them, at least think of the cluster you birthed – ” 

Loki slams a fist against the glass. “Lorelei would never touch them,” he hisses. “She would die before –” His expression flickers, shifts, and Thor knows with a shiver down his spine that he’s not being addressed by Loki anymore.

“Very clever,” this person in Loki’s skin murmurs. “Not as dumb as you look, your highness. You’ve grown.”

“Lady Lorelei,” Thor says after a moment, and Loki mouths a kiss. “If you return, you will not be harmed – ”

Loki shrugs languidly; a curiously feminine gesture. “I’ve enjoyed Asgard’s hospitality for long enough. I’ve important matters to attend to.” His mouth curls in a near-snarl. “Send my regards to Sif.”


End file.
